Keepers of the Breach
by Whytheskyisblue
Summary: Set 250 years after the new films. 3 young padawans venture out into the world and are faced with various challenges i will inflict upon them...
1. Chapter 1

_'_ _And you wonder when you wake up will it be alright_

 _Feels like there's something broken inside'_

 _Coldplay, Ink._

 _Three young (human) female padawans sat cross-legged in a white painted room with an air of nervous excitement and anticipation_ _about them, two silently watching the tallest of them as she instructed them._

 _"_ _Just close your eyes and relax," she said calmly, tucking a wayward strand of her darkish brown hair behind her ear. Her friends closed them. There was silence until one burst out laughing childishly. "Shush," the first hissed in annoyance, "there must be calm. Enakaih, you may be the youngest by six seasons but that's hardly an excuse. You're still eleven rotations old."  
The culprit muttered, "sorry, Faria!" then pursed her lips, barely choking back another laugh, and closed her eyes again. 'Faria' looked over to the other girl in the room, Mari, whose dark fringe was hanging in her face, and nodded to herself. "Good, now reach out your hands and concentrate…" she continued. They all reached out like they were trying to grab at something in front of them, and then… there was silence. Faria concentrated on the silence and easily fell into a trance; she had done this before without her friends and was never planning on telling them, but it had kind of slipped out one day and they had demanded that she teach them. They had been talking about a historic Jedi and his abilities at the time. His name was Luke Skywalker._

 _The force welcomed her like a friend, lapping around her like an ocean. It was beautiful but dangerous, and if you weren't paying attention you would get pulled away by the tide. She reached out with her mind into the endless energy field and felt the force in the air around Enakaih and Mari, nudging at their blindingly light presences to push them into meditation proper, touching at their minds. Enakaih was positively brimming with pride, but that was the moment Faria noticed the weird buzzing coming from Mari. This was unlike any sound she had heard before in the Force: it was new to her and she didn't like it. Suddenly, a bud of darkness bloomed at the centre of Mari's presence, and the buzzing intensified, moving over to Enakaih too, and returning them both to consciousness. Faria sighed, and followed them back to their bodies._

 _"_ _I can't do it," shouted Mari as soon as I opened her eyes, "I just can't." Enakaih opened her eyes, too._

 _"_ _Shouting's not going to help you or us!" said Enakaih angrily, and equally as loudly. "Just because you can't do it on your first go like Fari and I can, doesn't mean you can have a go at us for it!"_

 _"_ _Stop," Faria pleaded, "please stop, you're disturbing the Force!" she soon realised she could still hear that awful buzz, as it grew louder, overwhelming the two others. This was all about to go horribly wrong…_

 _Mari gritted her teeth in anger and clenched her fists, glaring at Enakaih like she was Darth Vader himself, "You always think you know it all, don't you? Well, listen to this: you are just another sad little girl with inferiority complex and a blatant disregard for other people's feelings, and you don't deserve to be my friend. Did you know that?"_

 _Faria and Enakaih stared their friend, shocked by this sudden show of aggression, but what they failed to notice was that while all this was happening, a wooden stool near Mari started to lift steadily into the air. Enakaih gasped as it suddenly flew straight towards her head. She ducked just in time, but Faria saw the danger too late._

 _The last things she saw before the world turned black were the looks of horror on her friends' faces._


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1 ~ Desken-4 ~ 215AKR

You're in control, is there anywhere you want to go?

You're in control, is there anything you want to know?

The future's for discovering

The space in which we're travelling

Coldplay, Square One

A youngish looking human female, who went by the name of Enakaih, strode swiftly down a dim, narrow corridor, lit only by small electric lights flickering softly from where there had once been torch brackets and flaming brands; this place was built long before electricity was harnessed, after all. With each step she took, her shoulder length brown hair swung from side to side and the soles of her knee-high leather boots rang out on the cold, smooth flagstones, echoing out for everyone to hear. The walls were made of the same grey stone, dotted every now and then with a fresco or wall hanging depicting a battle or important moment in the galaxy's history. Arched doorways appeared every so often, but she walked straight on past, her destination being what lay at the end of the corridor. The ceiling arched up above her, making the whole area seem to gain a breadth it didn't possess. Not that this place wasn't huge… It was a fortress, after all. Built onto, and into, a cliff face on an abandoned, rocky planet in the furthest reaches of the Outer Rim, and hewn from the same reddish rock as the cliff, it gave off the suggestion it had been there since time began. You could see for miles from each window, not that there was much to see, but at least it was a good vantage point to spot hungry krayt dragons and other predators. It had been built before the fall of the Empire as a safe place for the Emperor to retreat to if he was under threat. Being such a place, only the Emperor and those close to him (not that there were many) knew about it, which was why it was abandoned now.

Back in the corridor, the girl kept walking. She was not alone…

'Ugh! This lightsaber is the oldest thing since Sidious! I swear, the next padawan to use this will be dealing with a dead blade. The activation switch hardly even works!' came a huffy voice from her left as she walked. The source of said voice was a girl, in her mid-teens, staring at her moodily from under the brown hood of her robes. You could barely see her hazel eyes below the dark fringe swinging forward in rhythm with her steps; her mouth was turned down in a decidedly grumpy scowl.

Another figure, on her right this time, dressed in identical hooded robes, spoke up. "Mari, it's a practice blade, it's not like you're gonna have to use it for anything other than fighting me and Ennie, with our swaggy ass skills." This girl, Faria, was pretty much the polar opposite of Mari, with her hood instead drawn back and a grin plastered on her face. Even her hair was a clear contrast, falling down in slight waves to her shoulder blades instead of being cropped short.

"Well, you can talk, look how shiny and new yours is in comparison to mine!"

"Again, Mari, YOU'RE NOT GOING TO USE IT OUTSIDE OF TRAINING! For Yoda's sake."

"No need to raise your voice!"

Enakaih then half-heartedly made an attempt at joining in with the squabble, commenting that once they became fully-fledged Jedi they would be able to make their own blades anyway, before deciding to zone out completely. This sort of pointless argument really was not worth listening to.

Instead, she concentrated on all the good times she had had with Mari and Faria since she had first met them at the tender age of eight. Despite being different in many ways, they got on surprisingly well, and had been her best friends since they arrived here on Desken-4 nine years ago, young force-sensitives ready to be trained. They hadn't lost their tempers with each other since the meditation incident six years ago, which they tried not to talk about. It was a sore subject for Mari in particular, she being the one to blame for it being labelled an 'incident' at all, and they knew now that they should not have been attempting to enter the Forcescape without their respective Masters present, if at all. So they avoided the subject entirely, and concentrated on their friendship. Now, in fact, they were close enough that they had almost become her family, since none of them had had any real contact with their birth families since they came here, and all they had left of them were precious snatches of memory and a holopic or two.

Yes, Mari and Faria were her family now.

Eventually, a few minutes later, they reached what looked to be a dead end, but was soon revealed to be a door when Faria stepped forward and pressed a hand against a stone that looked much less worn than the others. A pulsing green light scanned her palm, then, finding that she matched the records, emitted a beep. The wall split down the middle and slid apart.

If you saw what lay beyond the secret door, you would perhaps understand why there was a need for security. In front of the three girls stretched a vast cavern, carved into the cliff behind the fortress, hidden from outside view. The soaring arc cave roof gazed down upon the small life forms scattered down below, phosphorescent panels fixed to it to provide light to the huge space. Spindly stalactites hung down like an upside-down city with small sky(ground?)scrapers pointing accusingly down at the ground.

The bare stone floor had been worn smooth from footsteps over the years; you would occasionally find that dip had almost been formed in some places where a particular path had been followed between the shelves a great many times, enough to form a little track that would most likely continue to be followed for a very long time.

Ah yes, the shelves. Rather than the roof, or the floor, although each had a story to tell, the shelves would almost definitely be the first thing you noticed as you entered the cave. Their towering height cast deep shadows onto the faces of the three girls, who flicked their eyes up before stepping forwards again, but their height was not the most intriguing thing about these shelves, it was that they were filled with… books. For this place was, in fact, a library.

The archives spanned the history of the galaxy, going back thousands of years, and absolutely everything had been documented. If you wanted to find out about the first galactic life forms, you came here. If you wanted to know about the history of the Old Republic, you came here. If you, for some obscure reason, wanted to find out about the love life of Luke Skywalker, you came here (Which Enakaih did. All the time.). Eventually, in more recent centuries, books had turned to holopads, but even the shelves holding these gave of the musty smell of paper.

However, the girls had no time for ancient manuscripts at this point in time and, following a wide path that cut right through the library, they walked towards a raised platform at the back of the cavern, where a large group of people stood. They knelt before the platform, before ascending a staircase to the top of it. Three older beings, two humans and a blue-skinned Twi'lek, split off from the group huddled in the centre to greet them. The Twi'lek smiled, and projected her thoughts across the Force to them through their training bond.  
 _It seems our padawans have turned up at last. Good day, girls._

Ah yes, that's right. These archives were also the headquarters of the Jedi Order.

"Ow!" A shot had hit Ennie's leg, causing her to yelp and yank off her blindfold. She had been caught off guard, distracted by her friends muttering beside her, and it hurt. Not that the shot would do any permanent damage, but it still hurt like hell for a good few seconds before becoming a dull throb. As soon as the pain lessened, she reactivated her lightsaber, pulled down the blindfold and threw herself back into the exercise, using the Force to sense and deflect shots from all directions. She didn't intend to let herself get hit by the droid twice in one session. Once was quite enough, thank you very much.

The three padawans, Mari, Enakaih and Faria, were in a joint training session lead by their respective masters: Theta, the Twi'lek, and Sarohf and Kyta, the two humans. The trainees had been engaged in traditional drills for two hours, but the adults had decided that it was time for a change, so told them to stand down and take a breather.

"Right, girls, we're going to put you in a combat situation to test your reaction speeds and rationality during close combat. Two of you, pair up. The other can have a rest," declared Kyta, flicking her hair behind her ear, "you're going to be fighting each other again today."

The trio groaned. They had done this several times before, and didn't enjoy it at all, if only because they knew each of their friend's strengths and weaknesses by heart. Reluctantly, Ennie and Faria paired up, leaving Mari to get a drink and watch from the side-lines as her best friends fought to whatever their masters judged to be a fatal blow.

The two ignited their blue practice sabers and smirked at each other whilst muttering to one another, "May the Force be with you, friend."

Only half a second later, they had leapt at each other.

Faria was rather enjoying this. She loved the exhilaration of fighting, of not knowing what would come next. Of course, she did know what was going to come next to an extent, through the Force, but she tried to ignore that, preferring to predict every move for herself, and feel the satisfaction of getting it right.

Ennie brought her blade in a low arc towards her, and she brought her own blade down, parrying the stroke, then started a counterattack of her own, sweeping towards the other girl whilst she was still undefended, and making a jab at her heart. Enakaih was quick though, and beat Faria's saber to it, locking blades and pushing against her, preventing the taller girl from reaching her chest. Faria pulled back her lightsaber, ending the lock, and was surprised when her friend not only anticipated this, but used it to make a thrust at her head. Fari's practice saber only just got there in time; a second later it and it would have sliced her head open if they had been battling with real sabers. She let out a breath, relieved. An idea sparking in her mind, she quickly drew on the Force to allow her to jump two metres into the air, landing behind the shorter girl. Before she could react, Fari had made two quick stabs at her back, and their masters were calling it off, a would-be-fatal stroke having been made.

 _I let you beat me!_ Enakaih spoke into her mind, not wanting their trainers to hear them, _I was totally expecting that!_

 _Of course you were, En. I believe you…_

 _Hey! Are you suggesting I couldn't beat you in a fair fight?_

 _Yes._

 _Okay, maybe you had a teensy weensy advantage, but I'm tired. Spending three hours on my holopad last night wasn't the best idea I've had._

 _And she concedes! Not gonna lie, I was expecting that to be harder…_

 _Gee, thanks!_

 _My pleasure._

The girls stuck their tongues out at each other, then walked to the edge of the room, where their masters stood, ready to give feedback.

Enakaih and Faria both had very... graceful styles of fighting, Mari had decided, watching them, and you could see they had been very much influenced by the styles of Sarohf and Kyta, their teachers. They had a tendency to, for example, twirl their blades around in their fingers as they came into an attack, which looked pretty, and made a pleasant swooshing noise as they whipped through the air, but seemingly served no other purpose. Not that she had any problem with twirling, or couldn't do it, no, nothing like that. She just didn't think of it as a useful addition to her attack. She herself was, she liked to think, a much more efficient fighter, using flashy moves only when necessary and striking quickly and accurately, often taking her opponent by surprise. Yes, she was better than both of them.

She stalked over to where her two best friends were standing, apparently deep in conversation with their mentors, and jutted in with, "I could have done better."

Silence.

"Excuse me?" asked Sarohf, his eyes narrowed, "We do not promote arrogance in the Jedi Order."

"I wasn't being arrogant, merely stating a fact. I could have done better than both of them. I'll bet I'm better than you, too."

"Child, think about what you are saying. Do you really think you could take on a Jedi Master and win?"

"Yes."

"Fine. I challenge you, lets see who's the better fighter. Duel. Centre. Now."

He strode to the centre of the room, followed by Mari, who walked with her chin high, confident she would defeat Enakaih's master.

The two Jedi ignited their lightsabers, Sarohf's a smooth green, Mari's a gently flickering blue. They began circling each other, waiting for the other to let their guard down, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Then, in the snap of a krayt dragon, Sarohf was upon her.

Mari put up a good fight, sparks flying as she parried the older man's blade with her own, her saber just a blur of blue light as it swept through the air, but she was no match for the Jedi master, who was relentless in his hacking and stabbing. Enakaih looked on in horror as in under fifteen minutes, he had Mari pinned on the floor, saber hovering hot above her throat. The younger teen ran forward and attempted to wrench him away from her friend, resulting in her master turning around and snarling in her face, 'Get back! She needs to learn her lesson. Arrogance is a straight path to the dark side,'

"But that's not

Ennie stumbled back, and could only look on as he dragged the blade across her friend's cheek.

The stench of burnt flesh hit her nose.

N/A: OK so I know the last bit was really OOC for a Jedi but I'll explain everything in the next chapter J


End file.
